false dawn developed, and it seemed as if a vacillating sun was
coming back along the path which it had just abandoned. A rosy pink hung
over the west, with beautifully delicate sea-green tints along the upper
edge of it. Slowly these faded into slate again, and the night had come.
It was but twenty-four hours since they had sat in their canvas chairs
discussing politics by starlight on the saloon deck of the _Korosko_;
only twelve since they had breakfasted there and had started spruce and
fresh upon their last pleasure trip. What a world of fresh impressions
had come upon them since then! How rudely they had been jostled out of
their take-it-for-granted complacency! The same shimmering silver stars
as they had looked upon last night, the same thin crescent of moon--but
they, what a chasm lay between that old pampered life and this!

The long line of camels moved as noiselessly as ghosts across the
desert. Before and behind were the silent swaying white figures of the
Arabs. Not a sound anywhere, not the very faintest sound, until far
away behind them they heard a human voice singing in a strong, droning,
unmusical fashion. It had the strangest effect, this far-away voice,
in that huge inarticulate wilderness. And then there came a well-known
rhythm into that distant chant, and they could almost hear the words: We
nightly pitch our moving tent A day's march nearer home.

Was Mr. Stuart in his right mind again, or was it some coincidence of
his delirium, that he should have chosen this for his song? With moist
eyes his friends looked back through the darkness, for well they knew
that home was very near to this wanderer. Gradually the voice died away
into a hum, and was absorbed once more into the masterful silence of the
desert.

"My dear old chap, I hope you're not hurt?" said Belmont, laying his
hand upon Cochrane's knee.

The Colonel had straightened himself, though he still gasped a little in
his breathing.

"I am all right again, now. Would you kindly show me which was the man
who struck me?"

"It was the fellow in front there--with his camel beside Fardet's."

"The young fellow with the moustache--I can't see him very well in this
light, but I think I could pick him out again. Thank you, Belmont!"

"But I thought some of your ribs were gone."

"No; it only knocked the wind out of me."

"You must be made of iron. It was a frightful blow. How could you rally
from it so quickly?"

The Colonel cleared his throat and hummed and stammered.

"The fact is, my dear Belmont--I'm sure you would not let it go
further--above all not to the ladies; but I am rather older than I used
to be, and rather than lose the military carriage which has always been
dear to me, I----"

"Stays, be Jove!" cried the astonished Irishman.

"Well, some slight artificial support," said the Colonel, stiffly, and
switched the conversation off to the chances of the morrow.

It still comes back in their dreams to those who are left, that long
night's march in the desert. It was like a dream itself, the silence of
it as they were borne forward upon those soft, shuffling sponge feet,
and the flitting, flickering figures which oscillated upon every side of
them. The whole universe seemed to be hung as a monstrous time-dial in
front of them. A star would glimmer like a lantern on the very level
of their path. They looked again, and it was a hand's-breadth up, and
another was shining beneath it. Hour after hour the broad stream flowed
sedately across the deep blue background, worlds and systems drifting
majestically overhead, and pouring over the dark horizon. In their
vastness and their beauty there was a vague consolation to the prisoners
for their own fate, and their own individuality seemed trivial and
unimportant amid the play of such tremendous forces. Slowly the grand
procession swept across the heaven, first climbing, then hanging long
with little apparent motion, and then